Savage raiding still needs work

[Duskane]

I really don't think cast bars are the problem with savage
also some fights like weapon refrain ultimate has physical tells so maybe do those and see how you feel.

[Absurdity]

A savage encounter shouldn't be about learning your job. The fact tanks are "dumbed down" is actually a good thing for savage because otherwise it would be an inaccessible trash heap that no one would do outside of a very small percent of people. They need way more learning assist technology and other improvements to make it easier to pick up. No idea why we are sitting around in this day and age still depending on the youtube community.

It's not about learning your job. Having learned how to play your job in normal content or "in theory" should be the absolute baseline of even stepping into savage. It is about adjusting that theoretical knowledge of your job to work in an encounter that isn't just a target dummy.

The difficulty in savage was never just "learning the dance" but it was always "learning the dance while performing your job adequately", learning how to play your job while also performing the boss mechanics correctly has always been part of the difficulty .

Reducing job complexity to a mindless button spam just so you can concentrate on the mechanics dance is not only a detriment to savage itself but also to every other content in the game.
With such a design there is literally nothing to keep you engaged once you learn the mechanics and consequently all the content that is less mechanically complex, a.i. 90% of the content, would just become a boring slog that you do on auto pilot.
You can see this clearly with tanks, there has not been a single expansion before Shadowbringers where I have been this bored while doing content on my tanks.

[Vyrerus]

A savage encounter shouldn't be about learning your job. The fact tanks are "dumbed down" is actually a good thing for savage because otherwise it would be an inaccessible trash heap that no one would do outside of a very small percent of people. They need way more learning assist technology and other improvements to make it easier to pick up. No idea why we are sitting around in this day and age still depending on the youtube community.

It's actually a bad thing on tanks, because it's taken away a lot of what's made them enjoyable. They have similar requirements, sans positionals, to what melee must do to keep uptime. This tier I returned to raiding, and now more than ever before I see tanks with minds so numbed that they constantly forget simple things like be second on the hate list. Starting pulls without tank stance on, even many pulls into the night. Improper swaps, despite swapping being easier than ever before. It's not even that they're new. They're actually veterans, and they're so bored out of their skull that the only time they're enjoying the content is in Ultimate or playing a different job in Delubnum Reginae Savage.

In fact, if it weren't for our ability to play other jobs on a whim, I'm sure many of them would have quit FFXIV this expansion.

[Colt47]

harder content generally teaches people to play better to clear the content. so... yeah it teaches you, and that's also like, the express purpose of the first turn lol

dumbing down every job to a 1 button rotation just makes playing them boring, where there's no ceiling to try and climb towards and no means of showcasing player ability. may as well play a mobile autobattler at that point

No one is advocating for one button jobs. Just from the standpoint of designing a fight, in order to have so many controls like they do now, they have to create massive pauses between attacks just so people can look away from the action to manage their own job actions. Every single person does it and even on warrior, which is one of the simpler ones, people still have to do it. That's why DPS are the ones that die the most: because they have to juggle so much on their plate during those pauses that it goes over the time limit before the next attack pattern. If someone practices a lot they can mitigate it a bit, but even after months of using the same job it still happens.

FYI what we are talking about isn't the job actions or even the number of actions, but developing patterns that can be learned and followed without removing ones sight from the action on the screen. Some jobs like Machinist are pretty decent, but compare Paladin to Gunbreaker and you can easily see some problems.

[Rilifane]

A savage encounter shouldn't be about learning your job. The fact tanks are "dumbed down" is actually a good thing for savage because otherwise it would be an inaccessible trash heap that no one would do outside of a very small percent of people. They need way more learning assist technology and other improvements to make it easier to pick up. No idea why we are sitting around in this day and age still depending on the youtube community.

You completely missed the point.
I didn't say you're learning your job there, I said that there is a learning curve which is tied to each encounter. For every single boss you have different timing, different greed opportunities etc. That's the learning curve. If savage fights were designed to be just "learn mechanics once, ez-peez from then on" because there is no room for improvement on your class for that specific encounter, savage would be even more short-lived than it already is.
People need something to keep them on their toes. The opportunity to squeeze out more dps by getting your greed timing down is a huge incentive.

If you're learning your basic rotation in a savage fight, you're doing something wrong. It's expected that you already know that while savage is there to challenge you and build on that.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

No one is advocating for one button jobs. Just from the standpoint of designing a fight, in order to have so many controls like they do now, they have to create massive pauses between attacks just so people can look away from the action to manage their own job actions. Every single person does it and even on warrior, which is one of the simpler ones, people still have to do it. That's why DPS are the ones that die the most: because they have to juggle so much on their plate during those pauses that it goes over the time limit before the next attack pattern. If someone practices a lot they can mitigate it a bit, but even after months of using the same job it still happens.

Considering so many burst windows happen during mechanics which require thought, if you're still having to look away from the action to manage your job actions, you need to practice more. Managing your job actions regardless of what's going on is a skill you have to learn in savage. In E9-12s, I know exactly which mechanics my deliriums are coming up on, which mechanics Blood Weapon is coming up on, without ever having to look at my hotbars. I have timelines memorized so I know when to start saving MP for burst window Edge of Shadow spam.

I'm also not sure what you mean by 'massive pauses' either. Very rarely is the boss doing nothing; most of the 'pauses' are mechanics which the healers & tanks have to deal with. (Tank busters & raidbusters). Almost every boss in a savage tier rarely goes longer than 1 auto before they start queueing up some other castbar.

[Rilifane]

Considering so many burst windows happen during mechanics which require thought, if you're still having to look away from the action to manage your job actions, you need to practice more. Managing your job actions regardless of what's going on is a skill you have to learn in savage. In E9-12s, I know exactly which mechanics my deliriums are coming up on, which mechanics Blood Weapon is coming up on, without ever having to look at my hotbars. I have timelines memorized so I know when to start saving MP for burst window Edge of Shadow spam.

Or design their UI better. There is a reason we can freely place and scale almost every UI element.
If someone needs to watch their timers, they're probably insecure on a class in that fight even if they can play it perfectly on a dummy. For some classes I had a gigantic 200% scaled "NOTICE ME SENPAI!" hotbar specifically for a handful of skills I tended to lose track of in a savage fight somewhere where I absolutely can't miss them. Even players with a lot of practice on their class can get insecure about timings and distracted by something else, that's normal but there are workarounds to make it easier while getting familiar with the fight itself.
People just need to use them until they're comfortable enough in a fight to get by without crutches.

But if it's something as basic as the 1-2-3 combo they frequently mess up then they definitely need to spent some quality time with a dummy before trying again. Ex is a step up from DF because ignoring mechanics is suddenly punishing and people need to learn to respect them more than they probably did in DF. Savage is a step up because mechanics happen much more frequently than in Ex. Doing all that while playing your rotation mostly correctly is the challenge of endgame raiding, not just standing at the right spot at the right time.
Otherwise we might aswell play it on a dance pad without something to hit.

[Raikai]

I think I just got used to dodge the castbars, but I kind of agree that the disconnect between the cast bar and the actual attack animation going off is quite jarring.

[Listrella]

what's wrong with using your brain during raids, brain power is just a valuable a skill as reflexes if not more so.

[Colt47]

Considering so many burst windows happen during mechanics which require thought, if you're still having to look away from the action to manage your job actions, you need to practice more. Managing your job actions regardless of what's going on is a skill you have to learn in savage. In E9-12s, I know exactly which mechanics my deliriums are coming up on, which mechanics Blood Weapon is coming up on, without ever having to look at my hotbars. I have timelines memorized so I know when to start saving MP for burst window Edge of Shadow spam.

I'm also not sure what you mean by 'massive pauses' either. Very rarely is the boss doing nothing; most of the 'pauses' are mechanics which the healers & tanks have to deal with. (Tank busters & raidbusters). Almost every boss in a savage tier rarely goes longer than 1 auto before they start queueing up some other castbar.

pretty much every encounter in savage are built with pauses in the patterns, because in order to maximize damage to make the enrage timer you have to push damage output, and that requires rotation work on damage dealers as well other jobs. If those windows didn't exist you'd never be able to use a lot of abilities properly and even melee dps would have trouble doing positionals as they keep having to weave constantly. Pauses are where the boss has a cast timer, like when on E11S Thanjeet is charging Elemental Break, or when you fight a boss and it just finishes a mechanic like in e10s after doing shadows. Yes, you are going to have to move to accomodate the mechanic, but that also is intentionally there to create a window where a damage dealer can perform rotation.

So this is kind of where the misunderstanding happens in these conversations. You are saying that it is about memorizing the jobs rotation, and that is true. However, the rotations on most jobs are still a touch complicated without having some means to review the bar. Even when you think you are not reviewing the bar, you are reviewing the bar. Even as a warrior main I end up doing it to make sure my rotation is on course sometimes or a cooldown is up. The thing is, There are a LOT of buttons, and unfortunately we are not perfect when it comes to memory. However, we do find convenient ways to shortcut the limitation through organization. Maybe buttons 1-6 are super easy to memorize so you put the most heavily used on those, with the next set on 7-12.

This is really nothing new: WOW had this going for ages before FFXIV ever existed. I think the Devs did great on simplifying the jobs in Shadowbringers as well to help make things easier on people. Just I don't feel the dps formula has really been hit quite yet, and also the job system in itself really wants players to have mastery over more than one job since PF groups often need different people at different times. The DPS that I think are pretty good right now are Rdm, Monk, and Sam, machinist is pretty fast paced as well and is probably okay (that job is more so misunderstood since the rotation is good, but very tight and easy to break.), Summoner is button heavy just by how it functions, I'd say ninja is the hardest to play right just because you can easily screw up on the jutsu without having practice (would say that job benefits the most from practice), Black mage does need help because it really doesn't handle movement that well despite having a lot of mobility.